Psalm 138:1-6

Thanks to Spotify, God’s people can now create playlists for just about anything: “Lent,” “Advent,” “Songs That Make Me Cry for No Reason,” and (a personal favorite) “Essential Avett Brothers Tracks.”

But despite being Spotify-deprived, God’s people of the First Testament had the Book of Psalms. They had access to a music library that contains poems or songs for almost any mood in human experience, including lament, joy, worship, depression, anger, grief, and bursts of creativity. I love the honest language with which the psalms express raw emotion. I imagine the intimate conversations that the psalmist must have had with God that dispelled the distance we tend to put between ourselves and our Creator. As the Avett Brothers sing in “Me and God”: “Sometimes I use curse words when I pray / But my God, my God and I don’t need a middle man.”

Maybe we don’t allow ourselves to draw so close to God out of a respect for, or a fear of the Almighty. But the psalmist reminds us that God is as close as the sound of our own voice as it calls out for God. Verse 3 declares, On the day I called, you answered me, you increased my strength of soul. I find comfort in knowing that this true experience of the ancient psalmist is just as possible for you and me, thousands of years later.

Consider

How can you make your conversations with God more honest?

Pray

For the Creator who cares more for our souls and wellbeing than our formality and airs, thanks be. Amen.



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